Some rumours are so spurious, one almost feels guilty in passing them on. Ever since The Dark Knight strode into the ranks of all-time box office titans, the UK and US tabloids have been falling over themselves to "announce" casting details for the followup, despite the fact that director Christopher Nolan still hasn't signed on for any sequel and is busy planning his forthcoming sci-fi action tale Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio instead.

The suspicion was that tabloid journos were simply picking names out of a hat in an effort to find something to write about on a particular day. After all, no one can sue you for suggesting that a particular actor is going to star in a franchise which has received almost universal praise – it doesn't really fit the defamation category.

The temptation is just to ignore the more unlikely suggestions. But then, what happens if one of them turns out to be correct? Seriously, ladies and gentlemen, it's a fanboy minefield.

Which is why I'm (somewhat glumly) re-reporting the news which has been rebounding around the geekosphere at breakneck speed this week: namely, that Christian Bale has been replaced as Batman for the next Nolan film. The story emanates from Australian tabloid the Herald Sun, not previously known for its proximity to Hollywood powerbrokers, and seems to stem from the idea that Bale's childish tantrum on the set of Terminator Salvation (made last year, but leaked last month) has made him supremely unpalatable to audiences.

Putting aside the issue of whether the newspaper's reporter has conjured the story from thin air, I guess the real issue here is whether the public perception of Bale has changed. Bale himself must have suspected as much, for why else would a man who - if the tape is indicative - has something of an ego problem, make such a miserable, humbling apology on public talk radio a week after the video leaked? You have to figure that either Bale himself came to the conclusion that the tape might scupper his career, or someone fairly high up told him in no uncertain terms that he was in deep doodoo if he failed to show the appropriate remorse.

Most columnists have poured scorn on the Herald Sun's story, which might have been slightly more believable, had it not suggested that Bale's still pretty C-list Terminator Salvation co-star, Sam Worthington, might be the next man to don the Dark Knight's cape. But actors' careers have suffered before when their audiences were turned off by their real life behaviour. The actions of Mel Gibson, who made an antisemitic outburst to an arresting officer in 2006 may not be directly comparable, but he will only return to the big screen as an actor this autumn in Edge of Darkness, and it still remains to be seen whether audiences will accept him.

Bale's rant was not in anything like the same league of awfulness, but it did suggest a similar nastiness about the man as a human being. Do the studios know something we don't? Have they commissioned polls and discovered that audiences will not accept somebody they dislike personally in a heroic role? And Batman is the supreme, spotless superhero. Despite his inner demons and a psychology which would keep Freud happy for at least a decade or two, he maintains an unimpeachable personal code. Maybe Bale no longer fits that mould.

On the other hand, the actor has been – to my mind – by far the best caped crusader yet, bringing exactly the right combination of scary intensity and charisma to the role. And surely Warner Bros would not dare to mess with a combination of director and star that brought them the No 4 film at the all-time global box office? Yet many critics - and readers of this column - argued that Bale was a weak point in The Dark Knight; that he was outshone by Heath Ledger's freewheeling performance as The Joker.

What do you think? Could you imagine a Batman film with Nolan but without Bale? Do you need to like an actor personally to enjoy seeing them in a heroic role? Or will this all have blown over by 2012, which after all is the earliest we are likely to see a new Batman movie?